Cluster emission under femtosecond laser ablation of silicon

Alexander V. Bulgakov (1) , Igor Ozerov (2) , Wladimir Marine (2)

1 Institute of Thermophysics - Institute of Thermophysics
2 GPEC - Groupe de Physique des Etats Condensés

Rich populations of clusters have been observed after femtosecond laser ablation of bulk silicon in vacuum. Size and velocity distributions of the clusters as well as their charge states have been analyzed by reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometry. An efficient emission of both neutral silicon clusters Sin (up to n = 6) and their cations Sin+ (up to n = 10) has been observed. The clusters are formed even at very low laser fluences, below ablation threshold, and their relative yield increases with fluence. We show the dependencies of the cluster yield as well as the expansion dynamics on both laser wavelength and laser fluence. The mechanisms of the cluster formation are discussed.

Mots clés: Silicon; Nanoclusters; Femtosecond laser ablation; Coulomb Explosion

Domaines: Agrégats Moléculaires et Atomiques [physics.atm-clus]; Physique des plasmas [physics.plasm-ph]; Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]; Chimie-Physique [physics.chem-ph]

Alexander V. Bulgakov, Igor Ozerov, Wladimir Marine. Cluster emission under femtosecond laser ablation of silicon. Thin Solid Films, 2003, 453-454, pp.557-561. ⟨10.1016/j.tsf.2003.11.136⟩. ⟨hal-00000863v2⟩